Wildrose leader Smith admits climate change real, human-caused

RED DEER, Alta. – Alberta Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith, under fire by critics as a weak leader and climate change denier, announced Friday she now believes climate change exists and that mankind is at least partially to blame. As her party delegates opened a weekend policy convention, Smith told reporters:

I accept that climate change is a reality, as do our members. I accept that there’s a human influence on it. I leave the debate about the details to the science about (to) what extent it is and how fast it is occurring.

Smith has been sharply criticized this week for refusing to say if she believes climate change exists, echoing disastrous statements she made in last year’s election campaign.

Afraid of what her members thought

Smith said Friday she has hedged in the past because she wasn’t sure where party rank and file stood on the issue, and said what opinions she did hear were across the spectrum.

“I really didn’t have a gauge of where our members were at because it had never come forward for debate,” said Smith.

“Remember, we are a grassroots party and I do take my marching orders from our members. When our members are silent on particular issues, I try my best to interpret. Sometimes we get it wrong, and in this case I’m pleased to see our members want us to move forward on a policy.”

Wildrose voting on climate policy

Party delegates will vote Saturday on two resolutions to direct the caucus to push for measures to reduce greenhouse gases, which lead to the extreme weather anomalies associated with climate change.

Smith said a straw poll of delegates on Friday indicated those resolutions will pass overwhelmingly, and said she takes that as a green light to speak out on climate change.

“It gives me a mandate,” she said.

The science of climate change has bedevilled the right of centre Wildrose party for more than a year.

According to some political observers it was the single biggest reason the party’s surging popularity fell through the floor just days before the vote in last year’s election, after Smith announced the science of climate change was not settled.

Climate silence attacked by NDP, Conservatives

Earlier this week, Smith declined to spell out her stand on climate change when asked by reporters about the upcoming environmental resolutions.

That led NDP Leader Brian Mason and Environment Minister Diana McQueen to sharply criticize Smith as a poor leader for refusing to stake a stand on a matter of clear importance to Albertans.

McQueen also stated that Alberta would be seen as a “joke” on the international stage if it was represented by a party that didn’t believe in climate change.

Those comments rankled Smith.

“I don’t accept a lecture from a do-nothing environment minister like Diana McQueen,” she said.

“If you look at our neighbours in Ontario and Quebec, they’re already below their 1990 levels (while) Alberta has increased its greenhouse gas emissions by 46 per cent.

“So every time this issue comes up the reason why (McQueen) points at our party is because there’s been absolutely no progress by her party — and it’s affecting Alberta.”

Climate change denier’s speech cancelled

The Wildrose also moved Friday to cancel the headline speaker for a Nov. 2 party fundraiser for MLA Jason Hale.

The speaker was author/filmmaker Bruno Wiskel, known for the book “The Sky is Not Falling,” which argues that glaciers have been melting and water levels rising for millenia, long before humans showed up.

Smith said Hale told her Wiskel was booked by an over-enthusiastic volunteer.

“I understand the fundraiser was put together by one of his well-meaning volunteers, and that the speaker has been cancelled,” said Smith.

“It’s very clear that our members want us to go in a particular direction.”

Stefan Baranski, spokesman for Premier Alison Redford, said the volunteer explanation is a weak fabrication for what was clearly a party-sanctioned event.

He said the fundraiser shows that what the party says and what it believes are two different things.

“Albertans won’t be fooled by Danielle Smith and her promises to sweep their extreme agenda under the rug,” said Baranski.

The verbal fireworks underscore the bitter animosity that exists between Redford’s Progressive Conservative party and Smith’s Wildrose.

Wildrose-Conservative blood-feud

The Wildrose is made up of many disaffected former Tories who grew disenchanted with what they called the party’s top-down management style and its decision to abandon the fiscal conservatism of former premier Ralph Klein and embrace taking on debt to pay for infrastructure.

The blood-feud acrimony surfaced again Friday when the Wildrose kicked out three PC staffers, accusing them of posing as Wildrose delegates in order to spy on the debate.

Smith said all parties allow opposition members to attend rival events as long as they register and are clearly marked as observers.

Baranski said his staffers did register as observers, but were turfed anyway, officially for lack of space.

“What that says to us is the Wildrose is clearly hiding something, clearly afraid of what looking into what their members are debating,” said Baranski.

Smith said that’s not the case.

“We’ve been open to having observers in the past,” she said.

“But if you’re going to try to sneak in and pretend you’re a member and start videotaping or audiotaping other members’ conversations with them thinking that you’re here as another Wildroser, we’re not going to allow for that.

“If they’re going to sneak their way in to spy on us, what else would they expect us to do?”

A mandatory leadership review was also held Friday and Smith received the support of 90.2 per cent of members in the vote.

4 Comments

Talk about pandering for votes. Now that there can be no doubt that the extra 3% of CO2 humans add to the atmosphere’s 400ppm ( 4/100 of 1%) is incapable of changing the climate, she caves in.

That’s as bad as Harper pretending to be a skeptic, but still sending $1.2 Billion out of the country to help the Third World “fight climate change”. He quit Kyoto to sign on to Copenhagen. The IMF wants $100 Billion a year for these type programs, so there there will be more of your hard earned tax dollars draining away.soon.http://climatechange.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=5F50D3E9-1

The great wonder of of it is that people still don’t get what a scam Global Warming is. It stopped warming after 1998. There has been no warming for 15 years in spite of rising levels of CO2. It only warmed for 8-9 years before James Hansen was telling about the supposed danger we were in. Then it morphed into “Climate Change” in 2007, after they were getting nervous because the warming trend had stopped for 9 years.

No surprise really, as even the heaviest paid “deniers” admit it is occurring the nuance has always been, what exactly is occurring, to what extent is it occurring, what we can expect, how we can mitigate and what or who is ultimately responsible. Its an exhaustive, thoroughly encompassing propaganda exercise in full spectrum dominance.

Ultimately climate change is an industry intertwined with the primary extraction industries. And like any other industry it needs buy in. Lets remember with cap n trade and other market based schemes “climate change” is a significant financial instrument as well, some say will be the replacement paradigm for the massive derivatives market.

It is also a very effective communications tool for political leverage, as we see cash strapped governments like in Alberta who is currently running huge deficits find billions for things like Carbon Capture and Sequestration. IF it was not for the “threat” of climate change, it would not be politically salient for a deficit riddled government to fork over billions to the largest most wealthiest countries on earth.

Universities and think tanks and other organizations around the world are well into developing mitigation strategies reaching into the billions of dollars. Financial markets have been built around it and the lexicon is thoroughly immersed in climate change nomenclature which drives public policy and often displaces serious dialogue about the economics of massive exploitation strategies often leaving host nations and local environs – in particular – severely wanting, environmentally disparaged and riddled with debt.

The “resource curse” is long in the tooth and climate change is but the most recent overlay working to paper over its fundamental impacts on societies, economies and human health.

Massive inequality in wealth distribution is largely a two pronged force, with central banking being lubricated by big oil to funnel the worlds resource wealth to the very few at the expense of the many, climate change rhetoric is integral to its continued success.

The impact of this globalized resource exploitation model is wreaking havoc on the economy and the environment, and the climate change industry captures and sequesters all opposition in order to sustain the globalization of the growth model, which is the driving force behind currency, empire, war and what we have come to know as peace.

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